Devices for cleaning dirty and unsanitary areas are well known in the art. Typically such devices have a cleaning head for contacting and cleaning the surface of the unsanitary area. The head may be attached to an elongate handle, so that the user's hand is remote from, and does not contact, the dirty and unsanitary surface during cleaning. Typical target surfaces include a toilet, sink, countertop, floor, or other hard surface.
One example of such a device is a toilet brush. The toilet brush may have bristles at one end which are immersed in the toilet bowl, often times with cleanser. The cleanser may be separately dispensed into the toilet bowl. Dual brush heads may be employed, as taught by U.S. Pat. No. 5,440,775. A two-sided scrub brush having bristles and a sponge head may be employed, as taught by U.S. Pat. No. 6,832,405.
The brush head may be permanently attached to an elongate handle for gripping by the user. The handle is intended to prevent the user's hand from being wetted by the water in the toilet bowl.
One attempt to provide convenience to the cleaning task is to have a toilet bowl brush with an integrated refillable reservoir. The cleaning fluid is disposed in dispensed from the reservoir, as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 7,131,783. Another attempt is U.S. Pat. No. 6,880,197 having a brush head which may include a toilet cleaning chemical embedded therein. However, these attempts do not overcome the problems encountered after the cleaning task is finished.
After cleaning, the toilet brush is then typically stored until the next use. However, the toilet brush may be wet, and unsanitary even if rinsed. The toilet brush may have an unpleasant smell and/or breed germs.
An attempt to overcome this problem has been to develop a head which is detachable from the handle. The head may be discarded after a single use, obviating the need to store that head under unpleasant and/or unsanitary conditions. One such attempt in the art is found in U.S. Pat. No. 5,888,002 which teaches a head having a brush molded from a one-piece flexible plastic material. The brush may be supplied with detergent or disinfectant. After use, the brush is disposed in a bag and discarded. However this attempt simply moves the unsanitary head from storage to a disposable bag. The user must handle the dirty head after each use to place it in the bag and then discard that bag.
An attempt to overcome this problem has been to use flushable brush heads. The flushable brush heads are typically made of sheets of water dissolvable material, as taught by U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,059,008; 7,159,265; 7,316,046; 7,581,276; and 7,650,663. Commercial embodiments of cleaning brushes having a head with sheet material have not been well accepted, apparently because the sheet material does not provide enough cleaning power to be efficacious.
WO 2009/080130 acknowledges this drawback in a cleaning device having paper material, and even paper material impregnated with detergent. But the '130 attempt at a solution is to provide a cleaning element having biodegradable plastic material, for example 70-80 percent polyvinyl alcohol and the remainder poly plasticizers. But these materials are known to slowly dissolve, leading to difficulty with flushing. Even if the device appears too large to be safely flushed after use, the user may separately discard the head—leading back to the unsanitary conditions sought to be avoided.
Attempts to improve upon the heads comprising sheet material is found in U.S. Pat. No. 7,530,138 which teaches a brush heads having loops made of paper. Again, it is unlikely the paper will provide sufficient cleaning power to be efficacious. Another attempt is found in U.S. Pat. No. 7,761,950 which teaches water disintegrable cords. However, these cords are simply found by twisting a water-disintegrable sheet, such as a nonwoven. One attempt to overcome these problems is found in US 2005/0074275 which teaches a cleaning device having a single dose of non-aqueous or anhydrous powder made of a water soluble foil, such as PVA.
An attempt to improve upon the water soluble foil is found in US 2008/0263797 which teaches a brush head having a dissolvable wrapper. This attempt further teaches the use of sheet materials having about 90 to 100% cellulosic pulp fibers—and takes us back to the earlier attempts using sheet materials and the associated problem upon saturation of insufficient stiffness to provide effective cleaning. Yet another attempt to use a cleaning head formed from a cellulose-containing substances such as paper is found in U.S. Pat. No. 7,743,451.
Yet another head may be made according to U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,644,185; 5,471,697; 7,275,276 and/or 2002/0054784. A head made of a rolled up material strip is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 7,467,437. The use of starch based materials is also known, as shown in commonly assigned U.S. Pat. No. 7,491,443 and in 4,863,655; RE 39,339/5,662,731; 6,183,150; 6,649,188; 6,231,970; 5,378,832; 2009/0312215; 2008/0003906; 2005/0266230; 2004/0048759 and 2001/014388. The use of granular and liquid materials is shown in commonly assigned P&G Case No. 11892, Ser. No. 12/901,804, filed Oct. 11, 2010.
All of the aforementioned brush heads must be attached to a handle for the convenience and sanitation of the user. Illustrative handles are taught in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,706,553; 5,878,459; 6,966,720; 7,032,270; 7,065,825; 7,603,739; 7,743,451; 2007/0081850; 2008/0250590; D513,444; D 556,406; D 572,872; D588,365; D614,373; and/or D622,017.
However none of the aforementioned attempts in the art overcome the dueling problems of providing flushability with sufficient cleaning power to be efficacious. Accordingly, there is still a need in the art for an improved cleaning device, usable for cleaning unsanitary areas such as a toilet.